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Course Info

Course Category

Economics

Course Level

Graduate

Credit Hours

3

Pre-requisites

N/A

Instructor

Dr Humaira AsadPh.D. EconomicsUniversity of Exeter, UK,

Course Contents

What is development economics?,
The nature of development economics, Why study development economics?, The
important role of values in development economics, What do we mean by
development? Traditional economic measures, The new economic view of development,
Amartya Sen’s “Capability” approach, Three core values of development, The
central role of women, The three objectives of development, The millennium
development goals, Common characteristics of developing countries, Defining the
developing world, Basic indicators of development: real income, health, and
education, Holistic measures of living levels and capabilities: The traditional
human development index, The new human development index, Characteristics of
the developing world: diversity within commonality, How low-income countries
today differ from developed countries in their earlier stages, Are living
standards of developing and developed nations converging? Case study: Divergent development: Pakistan and
Bangladesh, Classical growth theory, Rostow stages
of growth theory, The Harrod-Domar growth model, Structural change
models, The neoclassical counterrevolution: market fundamentalism: challenging
the static model, Components of economic growth, The Solow Neoclassical growth
model, Distribution and development: seven critical questions, Measuring
inequality, Measuring absolute poverty, Multidimensional Poverty Index, Poverty, inequality, and social welfare, Dualistic
development and shifting Lorenz curves, Kuznets’s Inverted U Hypothesis, Growth,
poverty and inequality, Economic characteristics of high-poverty groups, Policy
options on income inequality and poverty: some basic considerations, The need
for a package of policies, The basic issue: population growth and the quality
of life, Population growth: past, present, and future, Structure of the world’s
population, The hidden momentum of population growth, The demographic
transition, The demographic transition model, The Malthusian model, The H.H
theory of fertility, The demand for children in developing countries,
Implications for development and fertility, The consequences of high fertility:
some conflicting perspectives, Goals and objectives: toward a consensus, Some
policy approaches, What developing countries can do? What the developed
countries can do? How developed countries can help developing countries with
their population programs Case study - population, poverty, and development:
China and India, Human
capital, The central roles of education and health, Education and
health as joint investments for development, Improving health and education:
why increasing incomes is not sufficient, Investing in education and health:
the human capital approach, Child labor, Assumptions of the child labor
multiple equilibria model, Other approaches to child labor policy, The gender
gap: discrimination in education and health, Closing the educational gender gap
is important, Health and gender, Consequences of gender bias in health and
education, Educational systems and development, Definition of political economy,
Determinants of the amount of schooling received by an individual, Supply side, Social versus private benefits
and costs, Distribution of education, Education, inequality, and poverty,
Education, internal migration, and the brain drain, Health measurement and
distribution, Disease burden, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Parasitic worms and other
“neglected tropical diseases”, Health, productivity, and policy, Health systems
policy, Case study, Actual growth rate (ga), Warranted equilibrium
growth rate (gw), Natural growth rate (gn), The Solow
neoclassical growth model, Endogenous growth theory, The Romer model,
Criticisms of endogenous growth theory, The production function, The Cobb-Douglas production function,
Limitations of the Cobb-Douglas production function, Schools of
thought in context: South Korea and Argentina, Economic agent, Complementarity,
Big push, O-Ring model, Coordination failure, Multiple equilibria: a
diagrammatic approach, The big push: a graphical model, Conditions for multiple
equilibria, Technological externality, Why the problem cannot be solved by a
super-entrepreneur, Michael kremer’s O-Ring theory of economic development, The
O-Ring model, O-Ring production function, Implications of the O-Ring theory,
Economic development as self-discovery, The Hausmann-Rodrik-Velasco growth
diagnostics framework, Case of
El Salvador, Case of Brazil, Case of Dominican Republic, Case study: understanding a development
miracle: China, The migration and urbanization dilemma, Urbanization: trends
and projections, The role of cities, Industrial districts, The emergence of
industrial districts or clusters in china, The urban giantism problem, First-city
bias, Causes of urban giantism, The urban informal sector, Policies for the
urban informal sector, Women in the informal sector, Migration and development,
Toward an economic theory of rural-urban migration, Todaro migration model,
Harris-Todaro model, A verbal description of the Todaro model, The
Harris-Todaro migration model, Five policy implications, The imperative of
agricultural progress and rural development, Agricultural growth: past progress
and current challenges, Market failures and the need for government policy, The
structure of agrarian systems in the developing world, Three systems of
agriculture, Peasant agriculture in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, Agrarian
patterns in Latin America: progress and remaining poverty challenges, Subsistence
agriculture and extensive cultivation in Africa, The structure of agrarian
systems in the developing world, Transforming economies: problems of
fragmentation and subdivision of peasant land in Asia, The important role of
women, The microeconomics of farmer behavior and agricultural development, The
transition from peasant subsistence to specialized commercial farming, Subsistence
farming: risk aversion, uncertainty, and survival, The economics of
sharecropping and interlocking factor markets, The transition to mixed or
diversified farming, From divergence to specialization: modern commercial
farming, Learning about farming: the diffusion of pineapple growing in Ghana, Core
requirements of a strategy of agricultural and rural development, Improving
small-scale agriculture, Technology and innovation, Institutional and pricing
policies: providing the necessary economic incentives, Adapting to new
opportunities and new constraints, Conditions for rural development, Economics
and the environment, Global warming, Climate change, Sustainable development
and environmental accounting, Population, resources, and the environment, Poverty
and the environment, Growth versus the environment, Rural development and the
environment, Urban development and the environment, The global environment and
economy, The nature and pace of greenhouse gas–induced climate change, Natural
resource–based livelihoods as a pathway out of poverty: promise and limitations,
The scope of domestic-origin environmental degradation: an overview, Rural
development and the environment: a tale of two villages, A village in
Sub-Saharan Africa, A settlement near the Amazon, Environmental deterioration
in villages, Global warming and climate change: scope, mitigation, and
adaptation, Scope of the problem, Mitigation, Adaptation, Economic models of
environment issues, Privately owned resources, Common property resources, Public
goods and bads: regional environmental degradation and the free-rider problem, Limitations
of the public-good framework, Urban development and the environment, Environmental
problems of urban slums, Industrialization and urban air pollution, Problems of
congestion, clean water, and sanitation, Policy options in developing and
developed countries, What developing countries can do, Proper resource pricing,
Community involvement, Clearer property rights and resource ownership, Programs
to improve the economic alternatives of the poor, Raising the economic status
of women, Industrial emissions abatement policies, Proactive stance toward
climate change and environmental degradation, How developed countries can help
developing countries, Trade policies, Debt relief, Development assistance, What
developed countries can do for the global environment, Emission controls, Research
and development, Import restrictions, Case study: A world of contrasts on one
island: Haiti and the Dominican republic, Geography and original environments
Institutions: historical legacy, Human capital,Policy effects, International trade theory and development strategy,
Economic globalization: an introduction, International trade: some key issues,
Five basic questions about trade and development, Difference between
inward-looking or an outward-looking trade policy, International trade: some
key issues, Importance of exports to different developing nations, Types of
exports, UNIDO report highlights, Demand elasticities and export earnings
instability, The terms of trade and the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis, The
traditional theory of international trade, Comparative advantage, Theoretical
contributions: why trade take place?, Absolute advantage theory, Comparative
advantage theory: by David Ricardo, Specialization, Types of comparative
advantage, Relative factor endowments and international specialization: the
neoclassical model, Trade theory and development: the traditional arguments,
The critique of traditional free-trade theory in the context of
developing-country experience, Fixed resources, full employment, and the
international immobility of capital and skilled labor, Porter’s “competitive
advantage” theory, Unemployment, resource under utilization, and the
vent-for-surplus theory of international trade, Fixed, freely available
technology and consumer sovereignty, Most new products conceived / produced in
the us in 20th century, Internal factor mobility, perfect competition, and
uncertainty: increasing returns, imperfect competition and issues in
specialization, Some conclusions on trade theory and economic development
strategy, Traditional trade strategies for development: export promotion versus
import substitution, Export promotion: looking outward and seeing trade
barriers, Expanding exports of manufactured goods, Import substitution: looking
inward but still paying outward, Tariffs, infant industries, and the theory of
protection, The IS industrialization strategy and results, Tariff structures
and effective protection, Foreign-exchange rates, exchange controls, and the
devaluation decision, Trade pessimist arguments, Trade optimist arguments, International
finance and investment: key issues, The balance of payments account, General
considerations, A hypothetical illustration: deficits and debts, The issue of
payments deficits, Some initial policy issues, Trends in the balance of
payments, Accumulation of debt and emergence of the debt crisis, Background and
analysis, Origins of the 1980s debt crisis, Attempts at alleviation:
macroeconomic instability, Classic IMF stabilization policies, and their
critics, The IMF stabilization program, Tactics for debt relief, “Odious debt”
and its prevention, Resolution of 1980s–1990s debt crises and continued
vulnerabilities, The HIPC initiative, The global financial crisis and the
developing countries, Causes of the crisis and challenges to lasting recovery, Economic
impacts on developing countries, Distribution of influence among developing
countries, General policy framework, Differing impacts across developing
regions, Prospects for recovery and stability, Opportunities as well as dangers?,
The international flow of financial resources, Private foreign direct
investment and the multinational corporation, Private foreign investment: some
pros and cons for development, Traditional economic arguments in support of
private investment: filling savings, foreign-exchange, revenue, and management
gaps, Arguments against private foreign investment: widening gaps, Reconciling
the pros and cons, Private portfolio investment: benefits and risks, The role
and growth of remittances, Foreign aid: the development assistance debate, Conceptual
and measurement problems, Why donors give aid?, Political motivations, Economic
motivations: two-gap models and other criteria, Foreign-exchange constraints, Growth
and savings, Technical assistance, Absorptive capacity, Economic motivations
and self-interest, Why recipient countries accept aid?, The role of
nongovernmental organizations in aid, The effects of aid, The role of the
financial system in economic development, Differences between developed and developing-country
financial systems, The role of central banks and alternative arrangements, Functions
of a full-fledged central bank, Currency boards, Alternatives to central banks,
The role of development banking, Informal finance and the rise of micro finance,
Traditional informal finance, Micro finance institutions, MFIs: three current
policy debates, Potential limitations of micro finance as a development strategy